Search results for: conventional extraction

Authors: Kala Bharathan, R. Seshasayanan

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In this paper, a 1-bit Embedded Logic Full Adder (EFA) circuit in transistor level is proposed, which reduces logic complexity, gives low power and high speed. The design is further extended till 64 bits. To evaluate the performance of EFA, a 16, 32, 64-bit both Linear and Square root Carry Select Adder/Subtractor (CSLAS) Structure is also proposed. Realistic testing of proposed circuits is done on 8 X 8 Modified Booth multiplier and comparison in terms of power and delay is done. The EFA is implemented for different multiplier architectures for performance parameter comparison. Overall delay for CSLAS is reduced to 78% when compared to conventional one. The circuit implementations are done on TSMC 28nm CMOS technology using Cadence Virtuoso tool. The EFA has power savings of up to 14% when compared to the conventional adder. The present implementation was found to offer significant improvement in terms of power and speed in comparison to other full adder circuits.

Keywords: embedded logic, full adder, pdp, xor gate

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Authors: Belayihun Missaw

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Cotton cationization is an emerging area that solves the environmental problems associated with the reactive dyeing of cotton. In this study, keratin hydrolysate cationizing agent from chicken feather was extracted and optimized to eliminate the usage of salt during dyeing. Cationization of cotton using the extracted keratin hydrolysate and dyeing of the cationized cotton without salt was made. The effect of extraction parametric conditions like concentration of caustic soda, temperature and time were studied on the yield of protein from chicken feather and colour strength (K/S) values, and these process conditions were optimized. The optimum extraction conditions were. 25g/l caustic soda, at 500C temperature and 105 minutes with average yield = 91.2% and 4.32 colour strength value. The effect of salt addition, pH and concentration of cationizing agent on yield colour strength was also studied and optimized. It was observed that slightly acidic condition with 4% (% owf) concentration of cationizing agent gives a better dyeability as compared to normal cotton reactive dyeing. The physical properties of cationized-dyed fabric were assessed, and the result reveals that the cationization has a similar effect as normal dyeing of cotton. The cationization of cotton with keratin extract was found to be successful and economically viable.

Keywords: cotton materials, cationization, reactive dye, keratin hydrolysate

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Authors: Hadjer Didouh, Mohamed Hadj Meliani, Izzeddine Sameut Bouhaik

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As global demand for natural gas intensifies, Algeria is increasing its production to meet this rising need, placing significant strain on the nation's extensive pipeline infrastructure. Sonatrach, Algeria's national oil and gas company, faces persistent challenges from metal corrosion, particularly microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC), leading to substantial economic losses. This study investigates the corrosion-inhibiting properties of Calotropis procera extracts, known as karanka, as a sustainable alternative to conventional inhibitors, which often pose environmental risks. The Calotropis procera extracts were evaluated for their efficacy on carbon steel API 5L X52 through electrochemical techniques, including potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), under simulated operational conditions at varying concentrations, particularly at 10%, and elevated temperatures up to 60°C. The results demonstrated remarkable inhibition efficiency, achieving 96.73% at 60°C, attributed to the formation of a stable protective film on the metal surface that suppressed anodic and cathodic corrosion reactions. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed the stability and adherence of these protective films, while EIS analysis indicated a significant increase in charge transfer resistance, highlighting the extract's effectiveness in enhancing corrosion resistance. The abundant availability of Calotropis procera in Algeria and its low-cost extraction processes present a promising opportunity for sustainable biocorrosion management strategies in the oil and gas industry, reinforcing the potential of plant-based extracts as viable alternatives to synthetic inhibitors for environmentally friendly corrosion control.

Keywords: corrosion inhibition, calotropis procera, microbiologically influenced corrosion, eco-friendly inhibitor

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Authors: Balamurali Gunji, B. B. V. L. Deepak, B. B. Biswal, Amrutha Rout, Golak Bihari Mohanta

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Robots play an important role in the operations like pick and place, assembly, spot welding and much more in manufacturing industries. Out of those, assembly is a very important process in manufacturing, where 20% of manufacturing cost is wholly occupied by the assembly process. To do the assembly task effectively, Assembly Sequences Planning (ASP) is required. ASP is one of the multi-objective non-deterministic optimization problems, achieving the optimal assembly sequence involves huge search space and highly complex in nature. Many researchers have followed different algorithms to solve ASP problem, which they have several limitations like the local optimal solution, huge search space, and execution time is more, complexity in applying the algorithm, etc. By keeping the above limitations in mind, in this paper, a new automated optimal robotic assembly sequence planning using Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, automatic extraction of assembly predicates is done using Computer Aided Design (CAD) interface instead of extracting the assembly predicates manually. Due to this, the time of extraction of assembly predicates to obtain the feasible assembly sequence is reduced. The fitness evaluation of the obtained feasible sequence is carried out using ABC algorithm to generate the optimal assembly sequence. The proposed methodology is applied to different industrial products and compared the results with past literature.

Keywords: assembly sequence planning, CAD, artificial Bee colony algorithm, assembly predicates

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Authors: Sarina Sahmeddini, Fahimeh Safarpour, Forough Pazhuheian

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With the concepts of minimally invasive treatment and preventive dentistry gaining more and more recognition by dentists, there are many published clinical trials comparing the use of the erbium laser with traditional drilling for caries removal. However, the efficacy of the erbium laser is still controversial. The aim of this review study is to compare the effects of tooth preparation by laser irradiation and conventional preparation by bur to identify the best means for cavity preparation and reduction of recurrent caries. Randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and prospective, and retrospective cohort studies were included in this review. The eligibility criteria included studies in humans’ permanent teeth in which cavities were conducted in their cervical third and proximal surfaces. PubMed, Google scholar, and Scopus about Er:YAG laser and bur prepared cavities were carried out. The studies’ details were organized in four tables according to the groups: (1) Microleakage; (2) Morphological changes; (3) Microhardness; and (4) Bond strength. The initial search resulted in 134 articles, 12 studies published from 2012 up to March 2020 were included in this review. According to the risk of bias evaluation, all studies were classified as high quality. Clinical implications: Er:YAG lasers with the energy levels between 250 to 300 mJ can be proper alternatives to conventional burs, as minimal invasive instruments with no significant differences or better results in microleakage, microhardness, and bond strength compared with conventional burs. In conclusion, Er:YAG laser irradiations accompanied by phosphoric acid etching can reduce the chance of recurrent carries.

Keywords: lasers, drilling, caries, micro leakage

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Authors: Zehai Yu, Hui Zhu, Linglong Lin, Huawei Liang, Biao Yu, Weixin Huang

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With the development of intelligent vehicle systems, a high-precision road map is increasingly needed in many aspects. The automatic lane lines extraction and modeling are the most essential steps for the generation of a precise lane-level road map. In this paper, an automatic lane-level road map generation system is proposed. To extract the road markings on the ground, the multi-region Otsu thresholding method is applied, which calculates the intensity value of laser data that maximizes the variance between background and road markings. The extracted road marking points are then projected to the raster image and clustered using a two-stage clustering algorithm. Lane lines are subsequently recognized from these clusters by the shape features of their minimum bounding rectangle. To ensure the storage efficiency of the map, the lane lines are approximated to cubic polynomial curves using a Bayesian estimation approach. The proposed lane-level road map generation system has been tested on urban and expressway conditions in Hefei, China. The experimental results on the datasets show that our method can achieve excellent extraction and clustering effect, and the fitted lines can reach a high position accuracy with an error of less than 10 cm.

Keywords: curve fitting, lane-level road map, line recognition, multi-thresholding, two-stage clustering

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Authors: V. K. Stalin, V. Paneerselvam, M. Bharath, M. Kirithika

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In developing countries like India due to the rapid urbanization, large amount of waste materials are produced every year. These waste materials can be utilized in the improvement of problematic soils. Stone column is one of the best methods to improve soft clay deposits. In this study, load tests were conducted to ensure the suitability of waste as column materials. The variable parameters studied are material, number of column and encasement. The materials used for the study are stone aggregate, copper slag, construction waste, for one, two and three number of columns with geotextile and geogrid encasement. It was found that the performance of waste as column material are comparable to that of conventional stone column with and without encasement. Hence, it is concluded that the copper slag and construction waste may be used as a column material in place of conventional stone aggregate to improve the soft clay advantage being utilization of waste.

Keywords: stone column, geocomposite, construction waste, copper slag

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Authors: H. Lahlali F. El Haouzi, A.M.Al-Baradi, I. El Aboudi, M. El Azhari, A. Mdarhri

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Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a high performance thermoplastic polymer with exceptional physical and chemical properties, such as a high melting temperature, high thermal stability, and very good chemical resistance. Nevertheless, manufacturing PTFE is problematic due to its high melt viscosity (10 12 Pa.s). In practice, it is by now well established that this property presents a serious problem when the classical methods are used to synthesized the dense PTFE materials in particularly hot pressing, high temperature extrusion. In this framework, we use here a new process namely spark plasma sintering (SPS) to elaborate PTFE samples from the micro metric particles powder. It consists in applying simultaneous electric current and pressure directly on the sample powder. By controlling the processing parameters of this technique, a series of PTFE samples are easy obtained and associated to remarkably short time as is reported in an early work. Our central goal in the present study is to understand how the non conventional SPS affects the mechanical properties at room temperature. For this end, a second commercially series of PTFE synthesized by using the extrusion method is investigated. The first data according to the tensile mechanical properties are found to be superior for the first set samples (SPS). However, this trend is not observed for the results obtained from the compression testing. The observed macro-behaviors are correlated to some physical properties of the two series of samples such as their crystallinity or density. Upon a close examination of these properties, we believe the SPS technique can be seen as a promising way to elaborate the polymer having high molecular mass without compromising their mechanical properties.

Keywords: PTFE, extrusion, Spark Plasma Sintering, physical properties, mechanical behavior

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Authors: Svetlana Chovancova, Frantisek Illek, Jan Winkler

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The effect of tillage technology of maize on intensity of weed infestation and weed species composition was observed at experimental field. Maize is grown consecutively since 2001. The experimental site is situated at an altitude of 230 m above sea level in the Czech Republic. Variants of tillage technology are CT: plowing – conventional tillage 0.22 m, MT: loosening – disc tillage on the depth of 0.1 – 0.12 m, NT: direct sowing – without tillage. The evaluation of weed infestation was carried out by numerical method in years 2012 and 2013. Within the monitoring were found 20 various species of weeds. Conventional tillage (CT) primarily supports the occurrence of perennial weeds (Cirsium arvense, Convolvulus arvensis). Late spring species (Chenopodium album, Echinochloa crus-galli) were more frequently noticed on variants of loosening (MT) and direct sowing (NT). Different tillage causes a significant change of weed species spectrum in maize.

Keywords: weeds, maize, tillage, loosening, direct sowing

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Authors: Ben Soltane Cheima, Ittansa Yonas Kelbesa

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Speaker Identification (SI) is the task of establishing identity of an individual based on his/her voice characteristics. The SI task is typically achieved by two-stage signal processing: training and testing. The training process calculates speaker specific feature parameters from the speech and generates speaker models accordingly. In the testing phase, speech samples from unknown speakers are compared with the models and classified. Even though performance of speaker identification systems has improved due to recent advances in speech processing techniques, there is still need of improvement. In this paper, a Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI) based on a Multiple Classifier System (MCS) is proposed, using Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) as feature extraction and suitable combination of vector quantization (VQ) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) together with Expectation Maximization algorithm (EM) for speaker modeling. The use of Voice Activity Detector (VAD) with a hybrid approach based on Short Time Energy (STE) and Statistical Modeling of Background Noise in the pre-processing step of the feature extraction yields a better and more robust automatic speaker identification system. Also investigation of Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) clustering algorithm for initialization of GMM, for estimating the underlying parameters, in the EM step improved the convergence rate and systems performance. It also uses relative index as confidence measures in case of contradiction in identification process by GMM and VQ as well. Simulation results carried out on voxforge.org speech database using MATLAB highlight the efficacy of the proposed method compared to earlier work.

Keywords: feature extraction, speaker modeling, feature matching, Mel frequency cepstrum coefficient (MFCC), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), vector quantization (VQ), Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG), expectation maximization (EM), pre-processing, voice activity detection (VAD), short time energy (STE), background noise statistical modeling, closed-set tex-independent speaker identification system (CISI)

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Authors: Faruk Ortes, Derya Karabulut, Yunus Ziya Arslan

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Myoelectric features gathering from musculature environment are considered on a preferential basis to perceive muscle activation and control human arm prostheses according to recent experimental researches. EMG (electromyography) signal based human arm prostheses have shown a promising performance in terms of providing basic functional requirements of motions for the amputated people in recent years. However, these assistive devices for neurorehabilitation still have important limitations in enabling amputated people to perform rather sophisticated or functional movements. Surface electromyogram (EMG) is used as the control signal to command such devices. This kind of control consists of activating a motion in prosthetic arm using muscle activation for the same particular motion. Extraction of clear and certain neural information from EMG signals plays a major role especially in fine control of hand prosthesis movements. Many signal processing methods have been utilized for feature extraction from EMG signals. The specific objective of this study was to compare widely used time domain features of EMG signal including integrated EMG(IEMG), root mean square (RMS) and waveform length(WL) for prediction of externally applied forces to human hands. Obtained features were classified using artificial neural networks (ANN) to predict the forces. EMG signals supplied to process were recorded during only type of muscle contraction which is isometric and isotonic one. Experiments were performed by three healthy subjects who are right-handed and in a range of 25-35 year-old aging. EMG signals were collected from muscles of the proximal part of the upper body consisting of: biceps brachii, triceps brachii, pectorialis major and trapezius. The force prediction results obtained from the ANN were statistically analyzed and merits and pitfalls of the extracted features were discussed with detail. The obtained results are anticipated to contribute classification process of EMG signal and motion control of powered human arm prosthetics control.

Keywords: assistive devices for neurorehabilitation, electromyography, feature extraction, force estimation, human arm prosthesis

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Authors: Nastaran Cheshmehkaboodi, Lotfi Guizani, Noureddine Ghlamallah

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Seismic isolation proves to be a powerful technology in reducing seismic hazards and enhancing overall structural resilience. However, the performance of the technology can be influenced by various factors, including seismic inputs and soil conditions. This research aims to investigate the effects of moderate and strong earthquakes associated with different distances of the source on the seismic responses of conventional and isolated bridges, considering the soil-structure interaction effects. Two groups of moderate and strong near-fault records are applied to the conventional and isolated bridges, with and without considering the underlying soil. For this purpose, using the direct method, three soil properties representing rock, dense, and stiff soils are modeled in Abaqus software. Nonlinear time history analysis is carried out, and structural responses in terms of maximum deck acceleration, deck displacement, and isolation system displacement are studied. The comparison of dynamic responses between both earthquake groups demonstrates a consistent pattern, indicating that the bridge performance and the effects of soil-structure interaction are primarily influenced by the ground motions and their frequency contents. Low ratios of PGA/PGV are found to significantly impact all dynamic responses, resulting in higher force and displacement responses, regardless of the distance associated with the ruptured fault. In addition, displacement responses increase drastically on softer soils. Thus, meticulous consideration is crucial in designing isolation systems to avoid underestimating displacement demands and to ensure sufficient displacement capacity. Despite a lower PGA value in high seismicity areas in this study, the acceleration demand during strong earthquakes is up to 1.3 times higher in conventional bridges and up to 3 times higher in isolated bridges than in moderate earthquakes. Additionally, the displacement demand in strong earthquakes is up to 2 times higher in conventional bridges and up to 5 times higher in isolated bridges compared to moderate earthquakes, highlighting the increased force and displacement demand in strong earthquakes.

Keywords: bridges, seismic isolation, near-fault, earthquake characteristics, soil-structure interaction

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Authors: Zerroug Abdelhamid, Danielle Chassoux

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Various models are given to simulate homogeneous or heterogeneous cancerous tumors and extract in each case the boundary. The fractal dimension is then estimated by least squares method and compared to some previous methods.

Keywords: simulation, cancerous tumor, Markov fields, fractal dimension, extraction, recovering

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Authors: Dina Kuttah

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It is well known that recycling of by-product materials saves natural resources, reduces by-product volumes, and reduces the need for virgin materials. The steel industry produces a myriad of metal components for industrial chains, which in turn generates mineral discarded sand molds. Although these sands are clean before their use, after casting, they may contain contaminants. Therefore, huge quantities of excess by-product foundry sand (BFS) end up occupying large volumes in landfills. In Sweden, approximately 200000 tonnes of excess BFS end up in landfills. The transportation and construction industries have the greatest potential for reuse by-products because they use vast quantities of earthen materials annually. Accordingly, experimental work has been undertaken to evaluate the possible use of two chosen BFS from two Swedish foundries in a conventional Swedish asphalt mixture. The experimental procedure of this research has focused on the dosage, environmental and technical properties of the same mixture type ABT 11 and the same bitumen (160/220) but at different replacement proportions of the conventional fine sand with the two BFS. The environmental requirements, in addition to the technical requirements, namely, void ratio, static indirect tensile strength ratio, and resilient modulus before and after moisture-induced sensitivity tests of the asphalt mixtures, have been investigated in the current study. The test results demonstrated that the BFS from both foundries can be incorporated in the selected asphalt mixture at specified replacement proportions of the conventional fine sand fraction 0-2 mm, as discussed in the paper.

Keywords: asphalt mixtures, by-product foundry sand, indirect tensile strength, moisture induced sensitivity tests, resilient modulus

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Authors: Mahmoud S. El-Sebaey, Asko Ellman, Ahmed Hegazy, Tarek Ghonim

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Due to population growth, the need for drinkable healthy water is highly increased. Consequently, and since the conventional sources of water are limited, researchers devoted their efforts to oceans and seas for obtaining fresh drinkable water by thermal distillation. The current work is dedicated to the design and fabrication of modified solar still model, as well as conventional solar still for the sake of comparison. The modified still is single slope double basin solar still. The still consists of a lower basin with a dimension of 1000 mm x 1000 mm which contains the sea water, as well as the top basin that made with 4 mm acrylic, was temporarily kept on the supporting strips permanently fixed with the side walls. Equally ten spaced vertical glass strips of 50 mm height and 3 mm thickness were provided at the upper basin for the stagnancy of the water. Window glass of 3 mm was used as the transparent cover with 23° inclination at the top of the still. Furthermore, the performance evaluation and comparison of these two models in converting salty seawater into drinkable freshwater are introduced, analyzed and discussed. The experiments were performed during the period from June to July 2018 at seawater depths of 2, 3, 4 and 5 cm. Additionally, the solar still models were operated simultaneously in the same climatic conditions to analyze the influence of the modifications on the freshwater output. It can be concluded that the modified design of double basin single slope solar still shows the maximum freshwater output at all water depths tested. The results showed that the daily productivity for modified and conventional solar still was 2.9 and 1.8 dm³/m² day, indicating an increase of 60% in fresh water production.

Keywords: freshwater output, solar still, solar energy, thermal desalination

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Authors: Hidir S. Nogay

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In this study, two systems were created to predict interior temperature in induction motor. One of them consisted of a simple ANN model which has two layers, ten input parameters and one output parameter. The other one consisted of eight ANN models connected each other as cascaded. Cascaded ANN system has 17 inputs. Main reason of cascaded system being used in this study is to accomplish more accurate estimation by increasing inputs in the ANN system. Cascaded ANN system is compared with simple conventional ANN model to prove mentioned advantages. Dataset was obtained from experimental applications. Small part of the dataset was used to obtain more understandable graphs. Number of data is 329. 30% of the data was used for testing and validation. Test data and validation data were determined for each ANN model separately and reliability of each model was tested. As a result of this study, it has been understood that the cascaded ANN system produced more accurate estimates than conventional ANN model.

Keywords: cascaded neural network, internal temperature, inverter, three-phase induction motor

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Authors: Alluru Gopala Krishna, Thella Babu Rao

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In machining, there is always a problem with heat generation and friction produced during the process as they consequently affect tool wear and surface finish. An instant heat transfer mechanism could protect the cutting tool edge and enhance the tool life by cooling the cutting edge of the tool. In the present work, carbon nanotube (CNT) based nano-cutting fluid is proposed for machining a hard-to-cut material. Tool wear and surface roughness are considered for the evaluation of the nano-cutting fluid in turning process. The performance of nanocoolant is assessed against the conventional coolant and dry machining conditions and it is observed that the proposed nanocoolant has produced better performance than the conventional coolant.

Keywords: CNT based nano cutting fluid, tool wear, turning, surface roughness

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Authors: Hrishi Rakshit, Pooneh Bagheri Zadeh

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This paper investigates the performance of drone classification methods using conventional DCNN with different hyperparameters, when additional drone audio data is embedded in the dataset for training and further classification. In this paper, first a custom dataset is created using different images of drones from University of South California (USC) datasets and Leeds Beckett university datasets with embedded drone audio signal. The three well-known DCNN architectures namely, Resnet50, Darknet53 and Shufflenet are employed over the created dataset tuning their hyperparameters such as, learning rates, maximum epochs, Mini Batch size with different optimizers. Precision-Recall curves and F1 Scores-Threshold curves are used to evaluate the performance of the named classification algorithms. Experimental results show that Resnet50 has the highest efficiency compared to other DCNN methods.

Keywords: drone classifications, deep convolutional neural network, hyperparameters, drone audio signal

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Authors: Pisut Painmanakul, Thawatchai Chintateerachai, Supanid Lertlapwasin, Nusara Rojvilavan, Tanun Chalermsinsuwan, Nattawin Chawaloesphonsiya, Onanong Larpparisudthi

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Conventional coagulation, advance oxidation process (AOPs), and the combined process were evaluated and compared for its suitability to treat the stabilized cutting-oil wastewater. The 90% efficiency was obtained from the coagulation at Al2(SO4)3 dosage of 150 mg/L and pH 7. On the other hands, efficiencies of AOPs for 30 minutes oxidation time were 10% for acoustic oxidation, 12% for acoustic oxidation with hydrogen peroxide, 76% for Fenton, and 92% sono-Fenton processes. The highest efficiency for effective oil removal of AOPs required large amount of chemical. Therefore, AOPs were studied as a post-treatment after conventional separation process. The efficiency was considerable as the effluent COD can pass the standard required for industrial wastewater discharge with less chemical and energy consumption.

Keywords: cutting oily-wastewater, advance oxidation process, sono-fenton, combined process

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Authors: Mahendrapal Singh Pachlaniya, Laxmi Kumre

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The AOI (AND – OR- INVERTER) based design of XOR gate is proposed in this paper with less number of gates. This new XOR gate required four basic gates and basic gate include only AND, OR, Inverter (AOI). Conventional XOR gate required five basic gates. Ripple Carry Adder (RCA) used in parallel addition but propagation delay time is large. RCA replaced with Carry Select Adder (CSLA) to reduce propagation delay time. CSLA design with dual RCA considering carry = ‘0’ and carry = ‘1’, so it is not an area efficient adder. To make area efficient, modified CSLA is designed with single RCA considering carry = ‘0’ and another RCA considering carry = ‘1’ replaced with Binary to Excess 1 Converter (BEC). Now replacement of conventional XOR gate by new design of XOR gate in modified CSLA reduces much area compared to regular CSLA and modified CSLA.

Keywords: CSLA, BEC, XOR gate, area efficient

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Authors: Jeevan Balaji, Shreyas Chigurupati

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Pneumatic gripper use compressed air to operate its actuators (fingers). Unlike the conventional metallic gripper, a soft pneumatic actuator (SPA) can be used for relocating fragile objects. An added advantage for this gripper is that the pressure exerted on the object can be varied by changing the dimensions of the air chambers and also by the number of chambers. SPAs have many benefits over conventional robots in the military, medical fields because of their compliance nature and are easily produced using the 3D printing process. In the paper, SPA is proposed to perform pick and place tasks. A design was developed for the actuators, which is convenient for gripping any fragile objects. Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is used for 3D printing the actuators. The actuator model behaves differently as the parameters such as its chamber height, number of chambers change. A detailed FEM model of the actuator is drafted for different pressure inputs using ABAQUS CAE software, and a safe loading pressure range is found.

Keywords: soft robotics, pneumatic actuator, design and modelling, bending analysis

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Authors: H. Hafez, A. Mekkawy, R. Rostom

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Around 10% of the world’s CO₂ emissions could be attributed to the operational energy of buildings; that is why more research is directed towards the use of rammed earth walls which is claimed to have enhanced thermal properties compared to conventional building materials. The objective of this paper is to outline how the thermal performance of rammed earth walls compares to conventional reinforced concrete skeleton and red brick in-fill walls. For this sake, the indoor temperature and relative humidity of a classroom built with rammed earth walls and a vaulted red brick roof in the area of Behbeit, Giza, Egypt were measured hourly over 6 months using smart sensors. These parameters for the rammed earth walls were later also compared against the values obtained using a 'DesignBuilder v5' model to verify the model assumptions. The thermal insulation of rammed earth walls was found to be 30% better than this of the redbrick infill, and the recorded data were found to be almost 90% similar to the modelled values.

Keywords: rammed earth, thermal insulation, indoor air quality, design builder

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Authors: T. Deepa, S. R. Inchara, S. V. Venkatesh, Seema Tharannum

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Concrete is the most widely used structural material. It is made using locally available materials. However, Concrete has low tensile strength and may crack in the early days with exothermic hydration. Bacillus subtilis bacteria that form endospores is the biological agent considered in this study for Biomineralization or MICP (Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation) Technique and to address the increased Construction water demand, Recycled Grey Water which is obtained from STP of PES University, opted in place of Potable water. In this work, M30 grade conventional concrete is designed using OPC 53 grade cement, Manufactured Sand, Natural coarse aggregates, and Potable water. Conventional Concrete (CC), Bacterial Concrete with Potable water (BS), and Recycled Grey Water concrete (RGW) are the three different concrete specimens casted. Experimental studies such as the strength test and the surface hardness test are conducted on Conventional and Bacterial concrete samples after 7, 28, and 56 days of curing. Concrete cubes are subjected to a temperature of 50° C to investigate the effect of higher temperature. Cracked cube specimens are observed for Self-healing - as well as microstructure analysis with Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDAX), and X-Ray Diffraction Analysis (XRD).Noticeable Calcium salt deposition is observed on the surface of BS and RGW cracked specimen. Surface hardness and EDAX test gave promising result on the advantage of using spore-forming bacteria in concrete. This is followed by the strength gain in Compression and Flexure. Results also indicate that Recycled Grey Water can be a substitute for Normal water in concrete.

Keywords: bacillus subtilis, bacterial concrete, recycled grey water, self-healing, surface hardness of concrete

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Authors: Venencia Albert, Arulselvi Subramanian, Hara Prasad Pati, Asok K. Mukhophadhyay

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Acute traumatic coagulopathy in an endogenous dysregulation of the intrinsic coagulation system in response to the injury, associated with three-fold risk of poor outcome, and is more amenable to corrective interventions, subsequent to early identification and management. Multiple definitions for stratification of the patients' risk for early acute coagulopathy have been proposed, with considerable variations in the defining criteria, including several trauma-scoring systems based on prehospital data. We aimed to develop a clinically relevant definition for acute coagulopathy of trauma based on conventional coagulation assays and to assess its efficacy in comparison to recently established prehospital prediction models. Methodology: Retrospective data of all trauma patients (n = 490) presented to our level I trauma center, in 2014, was extracted. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was done to establish cut-offs for conventional coagulation assays for identification of patients with acute traumatic coagulopathy was done. Prospectively data of (n = 100) adult trauma patients was collected and cohort was stratified by the established definition and classified as "coagulopathic" or "non-coagulopathic" and correlated with the Prediction of acute coagulopathy of trauma score and Trauma-Induced Coagulopathy Clinical Score for identifying trauma coagulopathy and subsequent risk for mortality. Results: Data of 490 trauma patients (average age 31.85±9.04; 86.7% males) was extracted. 53.3% had head injury, 26.6% had fractures, 7.5% had chest and abdominal injury. Acute traumatic coagulopathy was defined as international normalized ratio ≥ 1.19; prothrombin time ≥ 15.5 s; activated partial thromboplastin time ≥ 29 s. Of the 100 adult trauma patients (average age 36.5±14.2; 94% males), 63% had early coagulopathy based on our conventional coagulation assay definition. Overall prediction of acute coagulopathy of trauma score was 118.7±58.5 and trauma-induced coagulopathy clinical score was 3(0-8). Both the scores were higher in coagulopathic than non-coagulopathic patients (prediction of acute coagulopathy of trauma score 123.2±8.3 vs. 110.9±6.8, p-value = 0.31; trauma-induced coagulopathy clinical score 4(3-8) vs. 3(0-8), p-value = 0.89), but not statistically significant. Overall mortality was 41%. Mortality rate was significantly higher in coagulopathic than non-coagulopathic patients (75.5% vs. 54.2%, p-value = 0.04). High prediction of acute coagulopathy of trauma score also significantly associated with mortality (134.2±9.95 vs. 107.8±6.82, p-value = 0.02), whereas trauma-induced coagulopathy clinical score did not vary be survivors and non-survivors. Conclusion: Early coagulopathy was seen in 63% of trauma patients, which was significantly associated with mortality. Acute traumatic coagulopathy defined by conventional coagulation assays (international normalized ratio ≥ 1.19; prothrombin time ≥ 15.5 s; activated partial thromboplastin time ≥ 29 s) demonstrated good ability to identify coagulopathy and subsequent mortality, in comparison to the prehospital parameter-based scoring systems. Prediction of acute coagulopathy of trauma score may be more suited for predicting mortality rather than early coagulopathy. In emergency trauma situations, where immediate corrective measures need to be taken, complex multivariable scoring algorithms may cause delay, whereas coagulation parameters and conventional coagulation tests will give highly specific results.

Keywords: trauma, coagulopathy, prediction, model

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Authors: Bang Young Kim, Sang Hoon Park, Chul Gyu Song

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A conventional optical coherence tomography (OCT) system has limited imaging depth, which is 1-2 mm, and suffers unwanted noise such as speckle noise. The motorized-stage-based OCT system, using a common-path Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (CP-FD-OCT) configuration, provides enhanced imaging depth and less noise so that we can overcome these limitations. Using this OCT systems, OCT images were obtained from an onion, and their subsurface structure was observed. As a result, the images obtained using the developed motorized-stage-based system showed enhanced imaging depth than the conventional system, since it is real-time accurate depth tracking. Consequently, the developed CP-FD-OCT systems and algorithms have good potential for the further development of endoscopic OCT for microsurgery.

Keywords: common-path OCT, FD-OCT, OCT, tracking algorithm

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Authors: Nazirah Zainul Abidin, Nurul Zahirah Mokhtar Azizi

Abstract:

Cost has always been the leading concern in green building development. The perception that construction cost for green building is higher than conventional buildings has only made the discussion of green building cost more difficult. Understanding the factors that will influence the cost of green construction is expected to shed light into what makes green construction more or at par with conventional projects, or perhaps, where cost can be optimised. This paper identifies the elements of cost before shifting the attention to the influencing factors. Findings from past studies uncovered various factors related to cost which are grouped into five focal themes i.e. awareness, knowledge, financial, technical, and government support. A conceptual framework is produced in a form of a flower diagram indicating the cost influencing factors of green building development. These factors were found to be both physical and non-physical aspects of a project. The framework provides ground for the next stage of research that is to further explore how these factors influence the project cost and decision making.

Keywords: green project, factors influencing cost, hard cost, soft cost

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Authors: Taki Eddine Seghier, Mohd Hamdan Ahmad, Yaik-Wah Lim, Samuel Opeyemi Williams

Abstract:

The assessment of building sustainability to achieve a specific green benchmark and the preparation of the required documents in order to receive a green building certification, both are considered as major challenging tasks for green building design team. However, this labor and time-consuming process can take advantage of the available Building Information Modeling (BIM) features such as material take-off and scheduling. Furthermore, the workflow can be automated in order to track potentially achievable credit points and provide rating feedback for several design options by using integrated Visual Programing (VP) to handle the stored parameters within the BIM model. Hence, this study proposes a BIM-based tool that uses Green Building Index (GBI) rating system requirements as a unique input case to evaluate the building sustainability in the design stage of the building project life cycle. The tool covers two key models for data extraction, firstly, a model for data extraction, calculation and the classification of achievable credit points in a green template, secondly, a model for the generation of the required documents for green building certification. The tool was validated on a BIM model of residential building and it serves as proof of concept that building sustainability assessment of GBI certification can be automatically evaluated and documented through BIM.

Keywords: green building rating system, GBRS, building information modeling, BIM, visual programming, VP, sustainability assessment

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Authors: Yili Chen, Xiaokun Liang, Zhicheng Zhang, Yaoqin Xie

Abstract:

In an effort to restore visual perception in retinal diseases, an electronic retinal prosthesis with thousands of electrodes has been developed. The image processing strategies of retinal prosthesis system converts the original images from the camera to the stimulus pattern which can be interpreted by the brain. Practically, the original images are with more high resolution (256x256) than that of the stimulus pattern (such as 25x25), which causes a technical image processing challenge to do large-capacity image information reduction. In this paper, we focus on developing an efficient image processing stimulus pattern extraction algorithm by using a single cue saliency map for extracting salient objects in the image with an optimal trimming threshold. Experimental results showed that the proposed stimulus pattern extraction algorithm performs quite well for different scenes in terms of the stimulus pattern. In the algorithm performance experiment, our proposed SCSPE algorithm have almost five times of the score compared with Boyle’s algorithm. Through experiment s we suggested that when there are salient objects in the scene (such as the blind meet people or talking with people), the trimming threshold should be set around 0.4max, in other situations, the trimming threshold values can be set between 0.2max-0.4max to give the satisfied stimulus pattern.

Keywords: retinal prosthesis, image processing, region of interest, saliency map, trimming threshold selection

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Authors: Kerim Emre Öksüz, Mehmet Çevik, A. Enbiya Bozdağ, Ali Özer, Mehmet Şimşir

Abstract:

Metal matrix composites (MMCs) have gained a considerable interest in the last three decades. Conventional powder metallurgy production route often involves the addition of reinforcing phases into the metal matrix directly, which leads to poor wetting behavior between ceramic phase and metal matrix and the segregation of reinforcements. The commonly used elements for ceramic phase formation in iron based MMCs are Ti, Nb, Mo, W, V and C, B. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the effect of sintering temperature and V-B addition on densification, phase development, microstructure, and hardness of Fe–V-B composites (Fe-(5-10) wt. %B – 25 wt. %V alloys) prepared by powder metallurgy process. Metal powder mixes were pressed uniaxial and sintered at different temperatures (ranging from 1300 to 1400ºC) for 1h. The microstructure of the (V, B) Fe composites was studied with the help of high magnification optical microscope and XRD. Experimental results show that (V, B) Fe composites can be produced by conventional powder metallurgy route.

Keywords: hardness, metal matrix composite (MMC), microstructure, powder metallurgy

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Authors: Luisa Maria Arrechea Fajardo, Luz Stella Cadavid Rodriguez

Abstract:

Fish is one of the most commercialized foods worldwide. However, this industry only takes advantage of about 55% of the product's weight, the rest is converted into waste, which is mainly composed of viscera, gills, scales and spines. Consequently, if these wastes are not used or disposed of properly, they cause serious environmental impacts. This is the case of Tumaco (Colombia), the second largest producer of marine fisheries on the Colombian Pacific coast, where artisanal fishermen process more than 50% of the commercialized volume. There, fishing waste is disposed primarily in the ocean, causing negative impacts on the environment and society. Therefore, in the present research, a proposal was made to take advantage of fishing waste through anaerobic treatments, through which it is possible to obtain products with high added value from organic waste. The research was carried out in four stages. First, the production of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in semi-continuous 4L reactors was studied, evaluating three hydraulic retention times (HRT) (10, 7 and 5 days) with four organic loading rates (OLR) (16, 14, 12 and 10 gVS/L/day), the experiment was carried out for 150 days. Subsequently, biogas production was evaluated from the solid digestate generated in the VFA production reactors, initially evaluating the biochemical methane potential (BMP) of 4 total solid concentrations (1, 2, 4 and 6% TS), for 40 days and then, with the optimum TS concentration (2 gVS/L/day), 2 HRT (15 and 20 days) in semi-continuous reactors, were evaluated for 100 days. Finally, the integration of the processes was carried out with the best conditions found, a first phase of VFA production from fishing waste and a second phase of biogas production from unrecovered VFAs and unprocessed material Additionally, an VFA membrane extraction system was included. In the first phase, a liquid digestate with a concentration and VFA production yield of 59.04 gVFA/L and 0.527 gVFA/gVS, respectively, was obtained, with the best condition found (HRT:7 days and OLR: 16 gVS/L/día), where acetic acid and isobutyric acid were the predominant acids. In the second phase of biogas production, a BMP of 0.349 Nm3CH4/KgVS was reached, and it was found as best HRT 20 days. In the integration, the isovaleric, butyric and isobutyric acid were the VFA with the highest percentage of extraction, additionally a 106.67% increase in biogas production was achieved. This research shows that anaerobic treatments are a promising technology for an environmentally safe management of fishing waste and presents the basis of a possible biorefinery.

Keywords: biogas production, fishing waste, VFA membrane extraction, VFA production

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